Introduction: from fragmentation to convergence in international law

Due Diligence Obligations in International Law

“…Yet, there are those who see general principles of law that fall under Article 38(1)(c) as a tool for interpreting rules or reinforcing legal reasoning as well. 144 Accordingly, general principles could be invoked even in the absence of a legal lacuna, for example, when the text of a treaty rule is unclear or open-ended and recourse to a general principle aids the interpreter in elaborating on the rationale of the rule and its meaning. In such cases, the function of a general principle is not to avoid a gap in the law but to reinforce the systemic nature of the international legal order and to reduce the fragmentation of international law.…”

“…[and ensure] that they remain part of general international law'. 146 This approach to general principles of law is more inclusive than theories construing general principles only in their law-creating dimension. In this broader concept, there is no rigid dogmatic separation between lawmaking and interpretative function, and general principles of law are imbued with both dimensions.…”

Business, Human Rights and the Environment—Using Macro Legal Analysis to Develop a Legal Framework That Coherently Addresses the Root Causes of Corporate Human Rights Violations and Environmental Degradation

“…Whereas at the national levels, the compartmentalisation of law into different categories and disciplines is generally considered to be uncontroversial as it leads to certain efficiencies within institutions and legal practice, the compartmentalisation within international law has received more critical attention. This so-called 'fragmentation' of international law has been critiqued both in negative [64] and positive terms [67]. It is not the purpose of this article to debate the merits and disadvantages of fragmentation in international law but to emphasise the different objectives and sometimes conflicts between international law's different branches which can lead to an incoherence within international policy-making [68,69].…”

“…It is not the purpose of this article to debate the merits and disadvantages of fragmentation in international law but to emphasise the different objectives and sometimes conflicts between international law's different branches which can lead to an incoherence within international policy-making [68,69]. Whilst international law itself has developed mechanisms to deal both with fragmentation and treaty congestion [70], and some convergence takes place between regimes [67], the underlying point is that for corporate decision making relating to human rights and the environment, there are ultimately a range of legal regimes along with their associated academic disciplines that have an influence on outcomes. Therefore, seeking to treat each of them discretely runs the risk of failing to take fully into account any common priorities that they may represent, the way they may mutually reinforce, any contradictions between them and crucially a picture of the overall legal architecture that includes those individual regimes as component parts.…”

The Refinement of International Law: From Fragmentation to Regime Interaction and Politicization

“…157 The editors claim that public international law "has grown from bilateral relationships, to something that is surely no more fragmented than it once was; international law has only become more diverse." 158 The overwhelming impression is that, although the lack of a central lawmaker has (inevitably) led to the existence of multiple legal regimes with overlapping but not identical memberships, whose main objectives often stand in tension, the law-appliers (both treaty bodies and courts) are careful not to contradict each other. The empirical findings on the scarcity of conflicts outsized by the prevailing scheme of parallelism and reconciliation of norms from different regimes, and also the observation of migration of norms from one regime to another suggest that the problems of fragmentation have been overstated.…”